The Dutch East India Company invented the stock market in 1602. Publicly traded shares. The first IPO in history.

Its sister company, the Dutch West India Company, bought Manhattan, founded New Amsterdam, and built a wall across the island using enslaved black labor to protect corporate assets.

That wall became Wall Street. That slave market became the New York Stock Exchange. That company town became New York City. That company became the United States of America.

The corporation didn’t take over the government. The corporation WAS the government. It had its own military, its own courts, its own currency, its own colonies. The government came later as middle management. We live in a company town. We just can’t see the walls.

Jodi LaCroix @hereiseeheresy

#StockMarket #WallStreet #NYC #History #Capitalism